My History With Meditation

I remember practicing meditation as a teenager. Sometimes on a whim, I would go outside and sit cross-legged on the ground in the garden. I would close my eyes and I think I did a good impression of meditating.

But amidst my calm poise, kissed by the rain or the sun, my mind was never silent. I could use whatever technique I knew to no avail. I would sit for a few minutes at a time, no more than half an hour. Sometimes I felt there was some shift inside. But I could never describe the change, if there was any.
​ Most times I felt like it was a failure.

Most times my mind would just create stories upon stories. Playing out my memories, my conversations, my hopes and fears. Even more dramatic than the best blockbuster.

In those times of the quiet garden, the gently floating butterflies, and chirping black birds, a storm raged within me. I felt like the taming of mind would never come to me.Yet I never lost faith that something must eventually change.

As I grew older, the mind did not let up. As a young adult I remember visiting the temple in the village on my own. I would sing, think about my life, and try to sit to meditate. In those days I knew something was working within me.

But my mind would never give me a break. Sometimes I felt as though I would go insane with all the thoughts that were flying around in there. Sometimes I felt like I should reach into my head and claw my brain out.

There was no peace. There was no fulfillment. There was just darkness. And seemingly no end in sight.

I think outwardly most people would have just thought I was average. Or preoccupied with thinking about something or the other. But inside, there was a war raging. A war that seemed to have no end, no victor, and no purpose.

In that experience of my own mind and emotions, I felt there was no room for anything else. As best as I could try to function “normally,” I would. But the regular flow of life seemed distant.

Because of this drama unfolding in my own mind there was hardly a moment when I felt I could give energy to something in my “life.”

It was truly like being a captive. I was captured by my own thoughts and emotions. I was captured by my own ideas, judgments and expectations. I was captured by what I thought I was and who I thought I must be.

I only know this was the experience in reflection. At the time I did not really recognize what was going on. It was mostly unconscious. Now that I have a bit of change in me, I can look back with a little bit more awareness. I am able to evaluate those years more objectively and see what was there.

I know that most of my behaviors during that time were incredibly self-destructive. My interests were anything that would occupy my mind. To give some direction to the energy. So that I could be at “war” with something other than myself.

This is how I became consumed with indulgences. Those things were how I covered up and tried to soothe myself from this inner tension. And I recognize this is why our society and our culture is the way that it is.​We are all trying to soothe ourselves in some way. Because the battle we face with our minds is exhausting and unfulfilling. The tension that causes in life leaves us uninspired, demotivated and disconnected from our purpose. But there seems to be no alternative to it. ​
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The Human Condition

I do not know if anyone else experiences their life like this. I do know that I tend to be a bit more extreme and dramatic in my thinking and feeling. So perhaps this is my version.

I have observed that most people have some of this tension.There is a fight in themselves with their own minds. I see it all the time, almost every day. So I know that it was not unique to me. Perhaps I was a bit more sensitive to it, and I gave more attention to it. Which made it seem like a constant looming threat.

You can imagine feeling like this day after day. Life felt as though it was far away, or underwater. This internal war took all of my energy to navigate and then it intermingled with all of the surprises of life.

My life at that time felt completely out of my control.I felt like a victim to it. That there was no way I could change any of it, or even help myself in some way. That victim-hood was a very difficult place to be.

Everything seemed to be happening to me and imposed on me, down to my own thoughts and emotions. And as much as I desired something else, each day I felt defeated by my circumstances.

I would have often wondered to myself – is this what life is about? Is this what my life will be like till I die? Is this suffering ever going to change? Can I ever have some peace or rest from this?

As I went along and observed others around me, I do not know what they were going through, and perhaps I still cannot know. But I wondered if they faced the same challenges, if they fought the same battles, if they felt the same defeats.

Now I have a bit more perspective. After having taken more control of my life, of my heart and mind, I can see that everyone has their own version of this war. And it is no less dramatic than mine. It is our battle to find ourselves and free ourselves from the limitations of who we think we are.

This was my experience before learning to meditate in a meaningful way. This was the way I lived before my spiritual awakening, before I started becoming conscious of life and what it meant.

I was very lucky that when my life started to collapse that I had support. My friends, my family, and my master caught me. And it was my master who finally helped me to take up my spiritual practice and begin driving my life towards a very different possibility.

The war that went on for years within me eventually found an end. And not the end we want and hope for. It ended in a bloody battlefield of broken dreams, a broken mind, and a broken heart.

When my mother passed away I felt something of myself had passed with her. I felt so far from everything in my life. She was my anchor and the person that I was closest to.

After she passed everything around me felt so inconsequential and irrelevant. My apathy towards life, towards my future, and towards those around me was at its peak.
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This was when my master began working with me deeply. This is where the spiritual practice of Yoga began to transform my life. It was then my story began anew.
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We have to face every limitation that is within us and make our peace.
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Transformation Is Not Comfortable

Let me be very clear, the changes that came to me in the beginning came to a mostly unwilling mind and heart. I imagine it must have been quite a task for my master to help me lift myself up. My time spent with him was very uncomfortable to begin with and very uncomfortable to end with.It remains mostly uncomfortable to this day.

The process of finding ourselves, of becoming more conscious, and learning about who we truly are is not smooth sailing. And I can’t imagine it being that way for anyone. Because we have to confront ourselves.

We have to face every limitation that is within us and make our peace. Then we have to learn to transform those limitations.

This is what happened for me. During that time in my life, I committed heavily to the practice of Yoga and it worked for me. But it was not an easy process, and for the most part it was painful, uncomfortable, and incredibly discouraging.

Painful to see how my own mind worked. Painful to face myself honestly. Painful to learn about myself and all the aspects that I was hiding from on a daily basis.

But I stayed with it, because I knew on some level that it was even more painful to stay in the condition that I was in before. I wanted to lift myself out, even though I could not see where it was going.

I have observed that the practice of meditation, the practice of Yoga will have some discomfort. But the pain and challenge that it brings to us is important.

​Because it is that experience that allows us to grow. Without that discomfort we do not truly see ourselves and we do not truly change.

Anyone who believes and expects that it will be all beautiful visions and blissful experiences will quickly give up the practice.Because it becomes difficult. And we cannot maintain that expectation.

It becomes uncomfortable and challenging. We have to realize that we need to deal with all the stuff that is within us. And that requires a certain honesty, courage and resolve.

If you hold onto that idea that you can have the nectar of bliss, peace, and fulfillment without doing the work – you are fooling yourself. The reality is that we will have to face the discomfort of limitations, grit our teeth, find our strength, and lift ourselves up.
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Expectations, Experiences, And Understanding

We all have fundamental expectations about ourselves and life. When they are not met we become unhappy and frustrated.This is what happened for me with meditation.

I had the expectation that I should be able to enter into meditation easily. After all, I had been reading about yoga and been involved with yoga for years. So it should just be like that. Well… that was not the case.

I had the expectation that my meditation should have some specific content, like lights, visions, sounds, or something going on in there for me to know – “aha! I am meditating!” But that also was not right. Those things can come in meditation but they are not the goal. It is just scenery of a sort – that shows you are on a journey.

I had all kinds of expectations that had to be unraveled, about the practice and about myself. What I did not know before was that those expectations were subtly influencing what happened in my meditation practice.

Because I thought “this is how meditation is,” and I felt so sure it was like that, I made it that way. My own mind created the experience.I was not open to really trying to experience what meditation had to offer. I needed to approach it differently.

What helped me during that time was my master’s words. He would check in on me, and very skillfully suggest one or two things. His way has never been to tell me outright, rather he would give me clues and let me work on it.

That helped me to open up and explore the process more. And then genuine experiences of the meditation would come to me. When that started happening it was quite shocking to me. Because it was nothing like what I had thought!

What I discovered was sometimes completely counter-intuitive or contrary to the way I thought it would be. When this would happen, I would quickly go to my master and ask him about it. Often I would complain that it’s not at all as I expected it to be.

He would acknowledge and help me to process the experience to see it in the context of my life and my journey. After many iterations of this, a small understanding began growing.

Now I was learning from direct experience of meditation. Now it was not an idea, expectation or concept. This was the growth of something genuine.

My real shift had begun. The moment I appreciated that I did not know how meditation worked, or what it does I became willing to explore. And in that exploration experiences came.

By processing those experiences I learnt about myself, and I learnt what was within me. Bit by bit my understanding grew. And with that understanding I began to change.

Wisdom Guides Transformation

As I stayed with the practice I began to experience more of myself. With that experience understanding grew. And from that understanding a new quality emerged. It was the beginning of wisdom within me.

This was completely new for me at this point in my life. Up until then I had concerned myself only with knowledge and ideas. I had absorbed so many spiritual books and felt proud that I could answer all kinds of questions about Yoga and life. But it was lifeless.

All the knowledge I had gained did nothing to help my life be more in balance, or to ease my suffering. It was only when this new quality came that some changes began.

When this quality started to emerge, I could not explain what it was. It made me pause multiple times a day. It made me slow down and start looking closely at my own mind.

This new quality was beyond words and very mysterious to me. Now I can appreciate that this was my accessing of wisdom within myself. That wisdom was starting to surface because of my deep practice. And as it became more conscious I began seeing, thinking, and acting differently.

Every little bit of wisdom that began blooming in me had a profound effect. It would make me question everything I thought about myself, my life, my relationships, and my purpose. Slowly but surely, as the wisdom dawned, my life was transformed.

It continues to this day. As I stay with my spiritual practice of Yoga, I can feel that growing wisdom that helps me to approach life in a radically different way. That wisdom guides me to live more consciously, more in harmony, and to see that there is so much more to my life than is obvious.

Over time in exploring this experience of wisdom I began to feel empowered. Slowly but surely my suffering began to change. Not because life had become different, but because armed with wisdom I was navigating life more skillfully.

This is where I started driving my life and embodying a sense of purpose I did not have before. I felt guided by some deeper part of myself. Each day some new insight would awaken helping to live more consciously or with greater energy.
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As my suffering eased and I felt my life was coming more into balance – I felt this sense of space and peace. In that space I could feel inspiration. I felt strongly that my life had some purpose and plan that I could not see this before.
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I began working towards this purpose that was showing up. I started following the little plans that would form in my mind, guided by this mysterious wisdom that remained with me like a beautiful fragrance.

As I stayed with the process a life that was more harmonious, more fulfilling, more inspired, and more in service emerged.

Meditation Opens That Door

For many years I could not explain what was happening to me. I knew that I was working on myself. I knew that I was working spiritually with the practice of Yoga. But I could not explain it to this degree. Now in reflection it is much clearer.

The more I stayed with my practice whole-heartedly, the more I was lifted. My Hatha Yoga practice helped me to cultivate health, wellness, and a dynamic quality of energy. But it is meditation that led to my wisdom.

It helped me to understand my life, and continues to be incredibly revealing day by day.In working with meditation we gain a measure of control that is not possible in any other practice. At least this is the way it has been for me.
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Through meditation I connect with some deeper part of myself, seemingly beyond mind, that provides an infinite support and comfort.My mind tries constantly to grasp to it, to look at it and comprehend. But I am learning that it cannot be contained by the mind. It is much more. We are much more.

Meditation opened that door for me. It has given me so much and I feel so grateful to have had the support to help me have a taste of this.

It is this gratitude that inspires me to share my practice with others. The spiritual practice of Yoga has helped me in ways that cannot be imagined. It can only be lived. And I wish that everyone could have that experience, can have that taste of their inner strength, and can tune into their own wisdom in life.

This is my message to you. If you have felt an attraction to yoga and to meditation – then follow that call. It is your own soul asking you, pushing you, to give it space. It is your own wisdom trying to create the opportunity to surface even more.

Do not be intimidated by the challenge of learning the skill or by your life situation.Begin the practice and you will be knocking on that door to your inner wisdom.
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Once that door opens a little bit, I guarantee it will all become worthwhile. Because once that light is ignited it will enlighten every part of your life.